Homesick

 

Last week we were out for the evening with some friends, enjoying a ‘quiz night’ at a local coffee shop. It was just a lot of laughter and fellowship…and some pretty obscure trivia! As I was hugging one of the women goodbye at the end of the night, I felt a catch in my chest and had a slight twinge of homesickness. “You smell just like my mom!” I blurted out before I really had a moment to think about it. After all, I suppose that comment could be considered rude by some! I smiled and probably blushed a bit as I added: “That is a good thing, by the way!” We chatted a bit and I found out that she wears White Linen perfume; the same as my mom always wore growing up. I hugged her again, extra tight, and said a silent prayer of blessing for my mom.

This morning I decided to bake some banana bread. Eric has been fighting a nasty flu bug the past day or so and I thought maybe a ‘taste of home’ might go a long way in helping him feel better. Well, and the bananas on the kitchen counter were turning black and crawling with fruit flies! Even as I write this the aroma of fresh baked bananas is filling the house. Again, I can close my eyes and be transported to my grandma’s kitchen. My eyes brim with tears, again, as I say a silent prayer of blessing for her.

What is going on with me? Wasn’t I the one who could hardly wait to get back on the plane and over here to Swaziland!? How can I be homesick? I felt homesick when we were in the States recently, raising funds and preparing to return here! Where is ‘home’? I have struggled with that concept since I was a very young girl. The first four years of my life, ‘home’ was a small town in Wisconsin. Then, we moved to New Jersey which became ‘home’ for the next fourteen years of my life. In 1989 I moved to Michigan where my dorm room at Calvin College became ‘home’ for the next three years. After Eric and I married in 1992, Michigan continued to be ‘home’. As a couple and then as a family we moved to different communities in West Michigan seven times, each time establishing ‘home’ in our new neighborhood. In certain phases of life I can recall feeling homesick more than at other times. Now, we call Swaziland ‘home’, and I still am having bouts of homesickness. What ‘home’ am I missing? What ‘home’ does my heart long for in those moments and hours when I am feeling that way? There is a song or a phrase (not sure which) that says “you can never go home again.” What exactly does that mean, I wonder? I have some idea what it might mean as I glance over the map of where life has taken me in my nearly forty years on this earth. What is ‘home’?

 Could it be ‘home’ is a place we are heading towards, not a place we are moving from? There is an old gospel song that touches on this:

This world is not my home, I’m just passing through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.

The angels beckon me through heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

 

Scripture has much to say on this topic, as well. 1 Peter 2: 11 refers to us as “aliens and strangers” in the world. Philippians 3: 20 says “…our citizenship is in heaven…” Hebrews 11:14-16 says of the people of faith described earlier in the chapter: “…they are looking for a country of their own…longing for a better country – a heavenly one.”

Even our Lord Jesus Christ had no place to call home. Jesus says in Luke 9:58: “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Jesus looked to His Father for provision. He would walk from village to village and rely on the kindness of strangers to feed Him and provide a place of rest for the night. When you think of what He gave up to call this earthly realm His ‘home’…He was the darling of heaven, the Lamb upon the throne, sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Contrast that with these verses out of John 1:

“He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” Vs. 10-11

 

As disciples of this Jesus we are called to take on that same suffering. The suffering of not feeling we are ‘home’ in this world. Our citizenship is in heaven. Our call is to always be moving forward, toward the Kingdom of God. We can strive to bring that Kingdom here…now. To some extent, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can catch glimpses of that Kingdom coming to earth as it is already come in heaven. That is, I believe, our purpose for being on this earth.  However, until Jesus returns to make all things new, we are in a journey towards the fullness of that reality.

Is this uncomfortable and difficult at times? Yes! Is it more of our natural tendency to want to settle in and get comfortable? Yes! However, Scripture tells us to hang on, push forward, “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude vs3) That word “contend” implies that we have something worth fighting for! We have something worth striving toward! That is our heavenly dwelling…our eternal home!

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling…Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, 6-8

 

 “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young – a place near your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you…Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere…”   ~ Psalm 84: 1-4, 10a